Res Publica means, literally, "the public thing." The word "republic" has come to mean a system of representational government similar to the Romans'. But for me it's the term that comes to mind when I think of the public, as opposed to the private, side of life. Conservatives, seeing it as a necessary evil, want the public thing to be as small as possible. Many of my fellow citizens share this point of view because, for them, government is just a bundle of services requiring a mandatory subscription fee in the form of taxes. They just want more services for less money, and, above all, a choice about what services to buy, and from whom. "Why should I pay taxes for public education when I can buy a better education for less money from a private school?" This is a sleight of hand, focusing our attention on the services aspect of government while conservatives and their big-business cronies manipulate rules and policies to further their own interests. Corporate interests benefit when citizens are uninvolved in their government. There are some functions that must be performed by government, for example, foreign affairs, national defense, maintaining a framework of laws. How much more than the minimum should government do? The decision could be based on:

whether the government can perform a needed function more efficiently or effectively than private parties; whether we can achieve a more just and equitable result when government performs the function; whether we, collectively, want to undertake a project, as a nation, state or city. The first two are a classic trade-off: fairness versus efficiency. I'm not convinced that the private sector can do everything more efficiently. For example, most county recorders maintain antiquated systems, using paper files or microfilm, making it very time-consuming for citizens to do real-estate title